Here we see an ad for the Super NES version of Ultima VII: The Black Gate. Apparently, when VII received its port to Nintendo’s console, its Roman numeral designation got the axe. As a result, the title became merely Ultima: The Black Gate.

I’m not a big fan of the SNES ports of the Ultima games (VI and VII). In the process of chopping things down to fit in a reasonably-sized ROM cartridge, a lot of content and features were lost (including the Roman numeral in this case). But at the same time, those ports likely gave console fans a taste of the Ultima universe that they would not have had otherwise.

As for me, I was lucky enough to originally play the Ultima games on the PC (and the Atari ST, in the case of Ultima III), so I guess I am spoiled.

[ From Electronic Gaming Monthly, November 1994, p.100]

Discussion Topic of the Week: In your opinion, what’s the best console port of any Ultima game?

Once upon a time, Origin ran a contest in conjunction with the 10th anniversary of the Ultima series. The developer included a “black orb of the moons” (a piece of polished obsidian) in most boxed copies of Ultima VI, released in 1990. But in the case of ten lucky owners, they included a reproduction of an Ultima rune (I assume ten, anyway — it’s the number of runes pictured on the flier). Folks who found a rune in their box automatically won a spot as an NPC character in Ultima VII. Click on the image above to see the full flier describing the contest.

I’ve read about people winning the Ultima VII contest somewhere before, so I assume Origin went through with it. Did anybody out there get a rune or otherwise become an NPC in Ultima VII? By all means, let us know!

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